President Tinubu urged to ignore ‘sponsored’ protests against NNPCL boss — NFI

Nigeria First Initiative, NFI, has called on President Bola Tinubu to ignore what it described as sponsored protests demanding the sack of the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, Mr. Bayo Ojulari.

Speaking at a press briefing in Abuja, yesterday, Executive Secretary of NFI, Nelson Okpanachi Idoko, said the protests were orchestrated by opposition forces in collaboration with a few disgruntled insiders at NNPCL to blackmail the administration and derail its reforms.

A group under the name Niger Delta Youths had staged a protest at the NNPC Towers in Abuja, accusing Ojulari of corruption and demanding that a Niger Deltan be appointed to head the company.

But NFI dismissed the demonstration as “a rented crowd of jobless youths from Abuja suburbs,” stressing that it had nothing to do with the Niger Delta people.

Idoko said: “Nigeria is a federation. No part of the country can dictate to the President who he must appoint. Even now, a Niger Deltan is the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, which has never happened before.”

He argued that branding the protest as a Niger Delta initiative was a ploy to stir ethnic sentiments and embarrass the government.

The organisation further described the protest as a calculated attempt to distract from NNPCL’s recent achievement of nearing 100 per cent of its OPEC quota allocation—something not attained in decades.

“The timing shows it was planned to drown the applause the milestone generated. Those behind it are enemies of Nigeria who hate to hear good news,” Idoko said.

NFI also alleged that the protest was deliberately staged while Tinubu was in Brazil wooing investors, with the aim of undermining the President’s message abroad that Nigeria is now an attractive investment destination.

The group revealed that it had obtained documents indicating plans to target other strategic federal agencies within the next six months to discredit government reforms.

It, therefore, urged Tinubu to remain focused and ignore what it described as “blackmail disguised as protests.”

Idoko added: “We call on the President to take decisive action against the sponsors and to fish out enemies within who benefit from government while working with the opposition to bring it down.”